Thursday, August 06, 2009

Milestones

Six months at this lab! How have I done? I delivered 2 tangibles: One analysis which the boss needed within weeks and I had to learn how to do it from scratch. I had a lot of fun doing it and glad I added that skill to my repertoire. The second is an assay the lab is in dire need of but has put on the back-burner for all the crankiness it involved. It's a simple assay, but wrought with quirks. I waded through it patiently, and meticulously, went through lot of back-and-forth-ness and just now finished standardizing the assay. We'll run it through our samples soon and know its utility then.

Besides the tangibles, I have picked up a couple techniques, gotten a reasonable hold on the literature in this field or at least a reasonable idea of how vast the literature is and how to tackle it.

I wish I had a more solid plan for the next year. I don't. I need to carve out minimum publishable unit, and work towards it. I also need to get multiplexing some assays to save time. So far, attempts have only confounded things and given rise to cross-contamination. But I feel a bit more confident now, so I should give it another shot.

I think I did ok. Not great, not bad, just ok. There is always room for improvement and I'm trying not to be my usual worst critic here.

Another significant milestone is that its a month since B left. B is the boyfriend, and since everyone has all sorts of affectionate names for their significant others on their blogs, I've been toying with R2IWCQW. (Returned-To-India-Who-Cant-Quit-Whining) :) but then I'm also hoping that B doesn't live up to that name for too much longer. :)

I think I'm doing pretty ok coping with this separation- something we had seen coming, but still hoping to avoid until the very end. Then again, stuff like this hits you only when you actually begin dealing with it. Work, friends, family and me have kept me busy and occupied. There's email/chat and what not to bridge the gap some. There has been a lot of deja vu: of reminders of past efforts made in long distance relationships: in finding cheap ways to call, trying to reconcile to the time-difference, trying to deal with the lack of someone in person.. etc. etc. Its interesting to see how I have things so much better now: in terms of money, access to technology, and plain and simple maturity levels. :) Things are going well in this department, and I see that as a testimony to the strength of our relationship.

hehe, plain simple maturity levels...that's what it comes down to, right? :)I think I learnt a new word out of this post. Wait, I still dunno what it means. What the hell is an assay? A typo-laden essay?! :P

You know what I noticed over the phone, is the lack of things to talk.. when we stay with each other, we would literally talk about every single thing, but not as soon as it happened.. sometime down the line.. and thts missing in long distance!

Sigh.. I know you guys will work it out.. we used to do the Office Communicator thingy.. its so good like the phone...

About Me

Just in case you were wondering, I'm not from Ipanema, nor have I ever lived in Brazil (altho' I dream of going there, some day..). I just happened to be listening to that song when this blog was born.
Random passer-by folks, the regulars, comisserators, dissenters, are all very welcome here. Thank-you for stopping by and sharing your thoughts.
For the random troll, however, try to get unnecessarily personal or irrelevently insulting and you just have my virtual equivalent of vunn tiiight SlaP.